My husband and I are now both working in the Auxerrois, which happens to be located on the west side of the vineyard and close to the forest edge. Earlier, when I was leaf pulling in the second row of the Auxerrois, I ran into several yellow jacket nests in the ground and marked the location where they were. I worked for a few more lineposts and saw a large entry way and sure enough, the yellow jackets were coming in and out of that hole in the ground.
I informed my husband about the "discovery" and he said that he would get to it early in the morning on a cold day. Yesterday was that day and when we went to the location of the yellow jacket nest, this is what we saw:
Something had dug a hole into the yellow jacket nest and pulled out the chambers where the larvae and pupae were located. We had never seen anything like that before.
We took pictures and searched the internet and AI came back with the following information:
Several animals prey on yellow jacket nests with skunks, raccoons, and bears being the most common. These mammals dig up the nests, attracted by the larvae and pupae inside and will also consume the sweet nectar in the nest.
Our best guess is that it was a skunk who helped us get rid of the yellow jacket underground nest. I hope it had a delectable feast!
This let my husband off the hook for spraying the nests.
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